Posted On Tuesday, 19 January 2016

This is an idea being proposed for Stockholm in a new report from
Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology. Having studied the barriers
Stockholmers face in switching from cars to bikes, the institute has
recommended that the city’s existing congestion charge zone
be adapted to benefit people commuting by bike. Some money earned
through the congestion charge (which covers most of the inner city)
could be funneled back into cycling benefits—not as cash in hand, but as
credits towards bike repairs or upgrades to studded tires for winter
riding. According to institute staff, the plan would do more than
provide practical incentives.

Other proposals suggested by the institute could also help, including
allowing bikes on trains and creating broader two-lane cycle highways
that heighten a rider’s sense of safety.

The institute’s recommendation of cash or in-kind benefits for
cyclists isn’t the first of its kind. Several European countries have
lined up various incentives and benefits to get people on to bikes—most
notably an experiment in France last summer where a control group of
10,000 employees were paid €0.25/km to cycle to work. This had
only limited success,
partly because commuters still had access to free parking. Given that
the habits the scheme tried to discourage were heavily ingrained, the
reward itself was also arguably on the low side.
The Stockholm method could potentially prove more effective because
it has a better balance of carrot and stick. The cycling benefits would
be funded by drivers paying a fee to enter the congestion zone, so the
incentive to bike would be matched more explicitly with a disincentive
to drive.